


Prejudice and Perversity

by oonaseckar



Category: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Foster Care, Gen, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25975939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Elizabeth Bennett was stillborn.  The Bennetts adopted a male cousin in infancy.Elias Bennett.  Everything Elizabeth would have been.  And that little bit extra...
Relationships: Elias Bennett/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Elizabeth Bennett was stillborn. The Bennetts adopted a male cousin in infancy.

It is whispered that an eligible man in search of a spouse may not always have a _lady_ in mind. But one finds that this fact is cordially ignored by polite Society.

Indeed the mothers of marriageable daughters may be relied upon to disregard such an inconvenient and disagreeable fact, especially if the hunting fowl of an eligible _parti_ is spotted in the environs of their neighbourhood's balls, dances and social gallivants. The rapture and hot blood of the hunt tends to dislodge any such considerations from their narrowly proportioned feminine minds –- there being so little space to house anything supernumerary or of extraordinary proportions so within. Of course one may wonder if half are even aware of the possibility in the first place, such sheltered lives as the feminine sex lead in these gentle and civilised times. Their innocence is touching, and treasured, and oftentimes useful, one might say.

It was at breakfast in the Bennett morning-room, that Mrs Bennett announced the exciting news that she'd been vouchsafed by other concerned ladies of the neighbourhood.

“Mr Bennett!” saith she, all aquiver. If she'd had a fan to hand, then there was no doubt she'd have made use of it. “You will be amazed when I give you the glad news regarding Netherfield!”

“Perhaps it may be so,” Mr Bennett agreed peaceably. He then proceeded to turn the pages of his news-sheet, and paid her no further mind.

There was a pregnant pause as Mrs Bennett waited to be pressed to continue, chest puffed out much like a pouter pigeon, and trembling all the while.

And when she had waited long enough, she answered the unasked question, also.

“Why, Mr Bennett, Netherfield has finally been let! I don't doubt a moment that you are eager to hear by _whom_ , a fact which has also been disclosed to me in the greatest confidence?” It was a touching matter, how Mrs Bennett's hope always sprang fresh and untainted from a continually disappointed spring, upon untilled and unreceptive soil.

“My dear,” Mr Bennett said –- adjusting his spectacles, for the figures printed in the case of the fluctuations of the Exchange in the City tried his eyes greatly -- “if you should choose to tell me, as a sitting target I cannot prevent you.”


	2. Chapter 2

This was something classified along the lines of a glad welcome to Mrs Bennett's plans, by Mr Bennett's standards, and she proceeded to treat it as such. Rushing into speech such that if running she'd have fallen over her own little and still shapely feet, she could not give the glad tidings quick enough to suit herself. “My love, we are so lucky –- for it is taken by a very rich young man! Very rich indeed, by Lady Lucas' account, and not married at all! Not one bit! He is of the North, and a perfectly good family, Lady Lucas says, although not noble. But with such a fortune, who will give a fig? And he begins to have his agents move his possessions and furniture almost with immediacy, and will enter upon his new property within the month and become our neighbour!”

And Mr Bennett did allow her a little of his attention at this point, and peered over his spectacles, leaning upon the breakfast table and appearing to consider the matter seriously. “His name, my lady wife?” he enquired.

“It is Bingley,” Mrs Bennett pronounced, a little pink and pleased. “A good solid North Country name, it sounds sensible and true, do not you think, Mr Bennett?”

“And without a wife, you say?” Mr Bennett checked, disregarding her effusion over nomenclature and the poetry and romance of language. “Tut tut,” he said, shaking his head regretfully. “ _Tut tut,_ one can only say. Tut _tut_.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Why, whatever can you intend by that, Mr Bennett?” Mrs Bennett asked sharply. “How can you account a single young man –- rich, and recently leasing a house in our own neighbourhood –- a regrettable thing?”

“My dear,” Mr Bennett responded peaceably, turning the papers of his news-sheet, “I think of the chaos of the ensuing hunt, amongst the maidens and the matrons of this neighbourhood, and I shiver for this young man. He has no idea of the hellish fate that the furies intend for him, poor fellow.” And he sipped at his tea, not a whit disturbed.

His response appeared to agitate his wife of many years, and she stood at his right hand, working her own hands together, as if seeking the best words with which to admonish or to destroy him.

“Mr Bennett! Any one of our dear daughters would make any man a very fine wife! And to that end, I am sure you will pursue his acquaintance at the earliest date possible. Now, put aside your joking with me, and tell me you will do so!”

“I believe I'll spare him one more added to the throng that will be courting the poor hounded fellow, just the same, my dear,” Mr Bennett replied, unconcerned. “If the girls choose to run after him, as silly girls often seem to do, then that is an affair for them to decide for themselves.”

Mrs Bennett did not actually stamp her foot at this response. But any observer would have marked it down as a very close call indeed. “Why, then, if you're not prepared to do the necessary yourself, Mr Bennett –- which I consider very harsh and cruel of you towards your poor dear girls, very unnatural in you when it's the thing that's most in their interests, poor defrauded loves that they are –- then you must allow our own Elias to go in your stead, and to make the introduction himself. He is the junior man of the house, after all, and has almost attained his majority, so I do not see anything against it.”


	4. Chapter 4

But the look that Mr Bennett cast her, over his pince-nez and with a markedly sceptical look in his small grey eyes, said that he was of a differing opinion. Even if he had not said, “Now, my dear, that would be accounted highly inappropriate by half the neighbourhood, for all that he's our cousin, ward and adopted son. And while it troubles me not at all –- the dear boy may go about introducing himself to any number of eligible young men, and half of Derbyshire to his adopted sisters, if he cares to do so –- I know that you yourself have an innumerable assortment of scruples on the matter of _what_ people might say, _how_ they might say it and _whom_ they may say it to. Which leaves you in a pretty fix, does it not?”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Mrs Bennett said, fretting helplessly. “If you will not make the introductions and call upon the young man, and you will not give your blessing to Elias doing the same? Indeed we cannot send him to do the job, and I do not know what I was thinking of, except that you do send me so distracted with your disobliging ways, Mr Bennett. It would be very unseemly. But my poor girls, husbandless, and with no prospects in view! What am I to do?”

Sadly, Mr Bennett appeared to take more interest in his dish of tea, and his pipe, than in Mrs Bennet's distracted agonies. But he did think to throw her a suggestion, thus. “Well, my dear, if you are so very anxious to get the band of hussies married off, perhaps you could after all set Elias on to the job. He has a varied and Catholic acquaintance, after all, and for that matter often attends the county market with Sir William and his tenants. If you liked then you might have him publish in the county broadsheet an advert for to auction off his sisters to the highest-bidding marriageable prospect, amongst the farmers and tradesmen of the county. I am sure you could have the four of them husbanded and off our hands in the wink of an eye, with such an exploit. Since the boy hasn't saved the entail, as you so entreated him, then he may as well make himself useful, after all!”


	5. Chapter 5

“Oh, Mr Bennett! It seems to be a particular joy to you, to frustrate me in everything I desire to benefit this family!” Mrs Bennet exploded, at this. “And the whole root of the trouble is indeed the fault of Elias, and he will be of not the slightest use in the matter, at all!” And with that she exploded out of the morning room, too, to go shout at a housemaid or worry at a bit of netting, or some other minor act of destruction to calm her poor nerves. With a husband like Mr Bennett, what else was a woman supposed to do?

***

Mr Bennett was rather fond of his adopted son, Elias. He had taken the boy on as his ward partly out of duty, when his parents were killed in a boating accident in their native Ireland, and partly out of a canny idea that an adopted son might enable him to break the entail. It was that same entail that so infuriated and frustrated his wife, after the production of four handsome daughters –- five, if one counted poor Lizzie, dead of scarlet fever at eighteen months. And since then, there'd never been a sign of a further quickening and confinement, and certainly not of a boy to save the family estate and fortunes.

The notion of a ward proving to be a valid legal heir had not proved fruitful, despite the best efforts of Mr Gardiner. (Who despite his Cheapside locale was a very good attorney, after all.) But this did not at all sour Mr Bennett's predisposition in his distant cousin and ward's favour. It was perhaps determined by his having been very fond of the boy's natural parents, his father having been more closely Mr Bennett's cousin. Young Gerry Mansell, a dashing great lad, good-looking and athletic, a bright, excitable spark that charmed and allured all who knew him. Gone too young, much too young in Mr Bennett's estimation.

Thus if Mr Bennett had been of a mind to confide in anyone, regarding his intentions about paying a visit or otherwise upon the new inhabitant of the local neighbourhood, then he would probably have chosen Elias as the recipient of his confidences. This, however, he did not do, for his own habitually inscrutable reasons. And therefore it was sprung upon the company all unawares, during a pleasant evening in the drawing room with a light spring fire in the hearth, and all set about the room engaged in their favoured occupations.


	6. Chapter 6

“I understand our new neighbour is well settled into his rented abode, by this date, Mrs Bennett,” Mr Bennett observed from his chair by the fireside, apropos of nothing very much. “And yet you and the girls here, and young Elias, have failed to dance attendance and pay a sickening court to the young turk, the northern sultan, not so? Which want of civility I can only account shockingly neglectful on all your parts. Come, my lady wife, how do you come to account for yourself, with respect to this failing of due courtesy and deference?”

“Oh, really, Mr Bennett,” Mrs Bennet expostulated in response to this, fretful as a wet hen with a mangy foot. “And how are we to have the means to do so, when you refuse to do the necessary and make the acquaintance of Mr Bingley, and his sisters? Who are no doubt charming, and delightful creatures, though surely not a patch on our own Jane, or even Lydia. But we will never know! That is the tragedy!”

“Why, you are very fine in your notions of etiquette and established modes, my dear,” Mr Bennett said. He made to affect an astonished look at her, over the pages of the book detailing ancient Greek military practice he was perusing. “For all the world, and certainly in our own small corner of it, it is popularly accounted quite sufficient for the senior male of a family or clan to make acquaintance with a newcomer to the vicinity, and thenceforth for all of his family to subsist on terms of the most agreeable amity and intimacy from that date. But I see you are more particular, more persnickety! Well, I bow to your judgement, Mrs Bennett. If it is not adequate or sufficient for your tastes, that I have called upon Mr Bingley not twenty-four hours since specifically in order to make his acquaintance and enable yourself, and our son and daughters, to make themselves known to the Bingleys... Well, dear me.”

He was caught up and arrested in the middle of his slightly pained, astonished reaction to his wife's plaint, due to being assaulted by his younger daughters, Lydia and Kitty. The assault was in the nature of an embrace, with their arms strangling quite tight about his neck, and many exclamations of devotion and gratitude bursting forth in squeals from their comely young throats. And once he had managed to cast them off, and dispense with the unwontedly informal expressions of affection they were eager to lavish upon him, he had his ward Elias to contend with.


	7. Chapter 7

Elias, who insisted on shaking hands with his adoptive father, with a slight yet merry smirk upon his lips. He cast his free hand through his curly dark hair, and was unable to resist a laugh. “Nicely played, sir,” he observed. “And not a one of us suspecting the deep game you were playing there. Eh, Mary, did you suspect? Jane? For I had not an idea of it –- quite taken in, we were, by your protestations.”

The older girls joined in, with his slightly reproving jokes and thanks directed at their father. Their mother was the last to be convinced –- hardly surprising, considering the lengths to which Mr Bennett had gone in order to pull the wool over her eyes. But at last, after a few moments the urging and assurances of a giddy, excited pair –- Lydia and Kitty –- managed to convince her. And then her joy and praises were as vociferous and loud as her sorrow and complaints had been previously.

“My dear husband,” she exclaimed, and insisted on embracing him with an enthusiasm equal to any of the girls. “How wonderful and dear of you to do so, and I shall not say a word about you tricking us all with all of your protestations, and insisting that you had no intention of helping us to get acquainted with such an eligible young man as Mr Bingley. No, nor of sending Elias in your stead! Did you know that, Elias? He would _not_ let us send you either, and so we would have been properly stymied! But now everything is righted, and I am so very happy!”

And Mr Bennett gained his freedom in this way, by means of abandoning his adopted son to his wife's unpredictable and impulsive embraces. He made good his escape the moment that he saw his chance, and his little trick had ceased to be amusing to him. Elias bore up well to his mother's inescapable hugs, since he knew better than to struggle. And since he was rather less than a favourite with her usually, and certainly preceded in her affections at least by Lydia and Jane, and probably by Kitty also, it was perhaps not so bad to be the subject of her indiscriminate and ecstatic affections, for a moment or two.

From that evening onwards, the only subject of conversation in the household –- at least between the younger girls and their mother –- was Mr Bingley, Mr Bingley's household, and the next time that they might see Mr Bingley. And since Mr Bennett had known this very well, perhaps it was not altogether surprising that he should have chosen to put off the evil moment until the very last possible second.


	8. Chapter 8

Thus Mr Bennett had the jump on the lot of them, with respect to the intriguing mysteries of their new neighbour. (And potential brother-in-law, to Elias and three of the girls.) And yet it was a matter very much in character for him, to refuse to disclose answers to any of the girls' –- and Mrs Bennett's –- urgent inquiries. (About such fascinating matters as whether he was a _handsome_ young man, if his manners were _courtly_ and _charming_ , if he was a _dashing fellow on a horse,_ and sundry other matters of close and dear importance, to the heart of any marriageable young maid.)

Elias, in fact, also had the hop on all of them, barring Mr Bennett. Though it was nothing so very great, his privilege regarding Mr Bingley's company, nothing to write home about. The truth of the matter was merely that he had been walking home over the fields a day previous, with the younger son of one of Sir William's tenant farmers, and they had seen a pair of young men on horseback on the horizon.

He'd come no closer than that to a personal encounter with the exciting new young bachelor of the county. But young Tom, the farmer's son, had recognised the horse of one of them as recently sold to the stablemaster belonging to the Bingley estate, and there was no doubt of the matter.

What could he know of them, from such a distance? Very little beyond two acceptably handsome silhouettes, a good seat on both Bingley and his companion, and a nice bit of horseflesh beneath the pair of them. However, he made the mistake of disclosing this exciting preliminary sighting in company with his sisters, before they had received a return visit from the newcomer to the neighbourhood. Thus he was quite responsible for all the trouble and pestering he was the subject of, as a result.


	9. Chapter 9

In any case, it proved a very good thing that Mr Bennett had relented. For in the space of a week or so, it was bruited about the neighbourhood, that the local county assembly was scheduled earlier in the month than usual. Only a bare fortnight away, and of course the Bennett girls — along with the entire female half of the neighbourhood — were afire with speculation. Would Mr Bingley attend? Surely he must? It would be the greatest snub and outrage, should he choose not!

In truth, it was _more_ than half of the local gentry, who were taken up with this lively new topic. Plenty of the menfolk – educated and propertied men, too — were at least as silly as their wives and daughters on the subject, in Elias’ estimation. Feverish with speculation over the incomers to their local set, and what it could mean for one family or another.

He was taking tea at the Lucases', when he allowed the disclosure of his sighting of the dratted Bingley fellow to slip from his mouth, instantly regretted but not recoverable by a single word. And indeed, as a result, he had his sisters hanging about his neck, and demanding every single detail he could wrack his brain for. Even Charlotte, his good friend, and normally sensible to the point of being bracing, seemed a little hazy-witted on the subject, and more excited than he ever normally witnessed her. Only Jane –- dear Jane –- his eldest sister and a little his senior, seemed to retain all of her wits at the thought of a new, eligible and rich young man to be resident so close to them.

But for the rest, he was forced to disclaim any detailed knowledge of the dress, manner, opinions and eye colour of the two gentlemen, to Lydia, Kitty, Charlotte and even Mary. (Who had recently decided that a rational woman needed a husband as much as any other. Especially when she required a patron, or sponsor, for the extensive scientific and technical training she was set on at the London institutes. Her father's allowance to her, and the funds in his gift, certainly could not cover it.) 

Finally Elias was driven to exasperation, and put a cloying and clinging Lydia off his knee, exclaiming, “Lyds, I'll thank you not to disturb my dish of tea over my breeches! And how you suppose I can provide you with the answers you seek, when I have explained time and again the distance young Tom and I were away from the two fellows, I do not know, you harum-scarum!”

Lydia was not a whit disturbed by his reproof, of course –- and never did pay too much respect to anyone, including the foster brother much disregarded by the mother who made such a pet of her. She merely fell off his knee, and ran away out into the garden, to play croquet with Charlotte's young cousins. That left him to be worried and chaffed at by the the rest of the company, instead. Which they did with an excellent will. Though Charlotte took a little pity on him, and drew him away from the company on the excuse of wanting him to turn the pages, as she practised a little upon the piano-forte.


	10. Chapter 10

“You’d think the poor chap was naught but a piece on a chessboard, to be pushed around from pillar to post, and finally claimed as personal luggage by whatever local Venus is sufficiently shameless in her pursuit,” he complained to Charlotte Lucas, on this musical at-home at the Lucases', a few evenings after Mr Bennett’s revelations.

He was occupied in turning the pages of Charlotte’s score, as she essayed another piece by the German composer fellow she was so taken up with on the pianoforte. Her mouth twisted a little in amusement, though she kept her concentration very creditably, and her fingering of the piece did credit to ten years of an Italian master down from London.

“Why, your dear sisters seem to be fretting your poor nerves a degree more than usual, Elias,” she commented in a soft undertone, as she ran through the first bars of the pretty Prussian air several times, struggling with the time-signature and the tempo. “Do you think him anything more?” she murmured, under cover of the notes. “Or yourself? My, what a wonderful opinion of himself every young man has. It must be bracing, to be so secure in one’s own esteem. We young ladies, on the other hand, are much used to be bargained back and forth as chattels in the marriage mart, and with little to say in the matter, half the time!” 

Sharp words, indeed: but yes, her face was not so very concerned, as her fingers teased out a trill of harmony from the Lucases’ instrument. Elias nudged at her with his shoulder, under the guise of reaching for the next sheet.

“What a rabble-rouser burns in your soul, Charlotte,” he teased her. “You’ll have no use for a husband yourself, then? Too busy handing out tracts by Miss Wollstonecraft, in the town square?”

He could not disturb Charlotte’s peace: her face was calm as a millpond, as she responded. “You know better, Elias. I mean to make a practical bargain with the world: and getting myself a suitable -- nay, let us say _advantageous_ \-- husband, is the first part of that bargain.”

She came to the end of her pretty air, and turned to face him on the piano-stool, smiling. Under cover of the friendly applause of half a dozen visitors, and the Lucases themselves, Elias said softly, “So you’d take this Bingley fellow on, if he should make you an offer? Why not, after all. It seems half the maidens in the county are half-crazy for him, without ever having set eyes on the fellow. Why should you prove yourself any different, Charlotte -- for all that you’re the only sensible woman of my acquaintance, barring my dear Jane?”

The applause was dying rapidly, and it was a good thing that Elias had a deal of composure and self-control, from a few years now of keeping his own counsel and maintaining the proprieties. He had not expected for Charlotte to _stab_ him. Just lightly — in the thigh, with a carefully abstracted hairpin.

But he kept his face impassive, and only dug an elbow into her side in response. It made her laugh. “Do you not think I could secure the attentions of an eligible young gentleman, Elias? How little faith you have in my resourcefulness. Not too flattering, from one I’ve long accounted my closest friend in this world! My, there's something of the feline in your temperament this night, my love. Is it your plaguey sisters at their teasing that's souring you? Or is it the thought of fresh young _men_ in the neighbourhood, that has your temperament all disturbed and riled up, my love?” She cast him a gaze up from beneath her lashes –- and Charlotte had very nice eyes, and lashes thick as any cow, for all she was a plain serviceable girl with nothing of the _coquette_ about her.

Elias Bennett would have preferred, however, that she did not use those lashes in the service of mock-flirtation, when there was nothing in the nature of romance between himself and his childhood friend. It only excited her mother unreasonably, even though Elias knew himself a rather poor match. He had, after all, only the bare competence his father could bestow upon him, and even that a very inadequate one. Lady Lucas, however, was very fond of him, he knew without conceit. She would have welcomed any match between himself and her daughter with a glad heart, and stoutly informed her husband that he was glad of it too, with a volume and frequency sufficient to eventually convince him.

He would also have preferred Charlotte _not_ to flirt with him, since she invariably did it as a pose, to cover up advances, and conversation, of a quite different nature. It was generally cover for enquiries of a scandalously intimate nature, which no refined young lady should have had hidden knowledge of. So it proved on this occasion. 

“Were they so _very_ handsome, that you were distracted from young Tom, my love?” she asked him now, in a low voice. And she disguised her words from the present company, with the gentle ripple of notes produced by her fingers upon the keyboard.

“For I know he's quite your _favourite_ , currently,” she added, with a pretty trill of notes to cover up the sly aside. “You made cow eyes at him all service last Sunday in church, it was a wonder none of the respectable matrons of the parish noticed it. Though if they had, they'd just have thought you'd conceived a hopeless pastoral passion for some kitchen maid or shepherdess in the back of the hall, one of his sisters or cousins.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Charlotte, for heaven's sake!” Elias hissed at her. And for the thousandth time, or a little more than that, he wished he'd never allowed Charlotte knowledge of his secret predilections. It was not seemly, for a young lady, and she would be better off without the awareness of his trouble and his shadow self. Not that he had ever in fact confided in her –- it was only that as they grew up, she had seemed to artfully divine his true nature, without even needing to be told. It was only to be thanked that there was not one individual in ten thousand as perspicacious as Charlotte.

But Charlotte only smiled to herself, and twinkled up at him: and he relented a bit, and continued to turn her pages. For he was safe with Charlotte if he was safe with anyone, and his secret was something she would sooner die than ever divulge. Indeed, perhaps one day they might make Lady Lucas a happy woman, and settle for each other, for want of a true match of the heart.

It was not as if society, and its prejudices, were ever going to allow a match for Elias, of the kind that would truly suit his tastes.

Sir William was making the rounds of the room, and without a swift exit they would have been subjected to one of his familiar reminiscences about St. James's Court. But Elias was wise to such things, and a more wily bird than his innocent face and twenty years might have the world around him assume.

In a trice he had Charlotte’s hand on his arm, and was escorting her out to take the air on the terrace. Also known as inviting her to _poke fun_ , and _shoot a thousand arrows_ , at both assembled company and distant acquaintance.

xxx

It was true that the Bennett girls looked forward eagerly to their first encounter with their new neighbour, but also true that they were destined to wait a fair while. As a matter surely of pure perversity, he chose to return Mr Bennett's call while the rest of the family were absent, Elias accompanying Mrs Bennett and the girls to Bath, to take the waters and visit a distant connexion. And their next encounter, at Sir William's shooting party given in Bingley's honour, was no more fruitful for Elias. He was away again, visiting an old friend from the prep school where he'd spent a couple of dreary terms, after bereavement, and before being adopted into the Bennett family. Not that it was any sorrow for him: he vastly preferred to spend a delightful weekend by the seaside with Hardy and his new bride, sooner than murder poor partridges in the name of sport, and gawk at the new resident as proxy for his sisters. (For all it wounded his heart secretly, a little, to see Hardy so happy wedded, when they'd been all in all to each other for a whole term, at school.) 

Although of course his sisters pleaded mightily for him to stay, and attend, and report back to them. By the time he returned from his seaside sojourn, he was mightily out of favour with one and almost all of them, barring dear Jane.


	12. Chapter 12

“Well, my boy, you missed nothing,” Mr Bennett told him cheerfully, “for the man hasn't a brain in his head. Though he's a crack shot, to be sure, and I can't deny it him. I'm told he has a pair of pretty sisters, though, if you wish to cultivate his acquaintance for their sake. At all events, you'll have your chance at the next ball at the assembly rooms, for he quite avowed his intent to attend. I don't think he had a great amount of choice, for every man at the shoot had been button-holed by his daughter and compelled to give his word to insist upon poor Bingley's attendance. A treat for us all, eh?” he quizzed. “And if one of you girls doesn't wing him with a little buckshot, bring him home from the ball with his addresses to pay to you, and permission to ask from me, then your mother has failed in her duty. And I'll be looking to replace her, with some handy governess, or actress off the London stage.”

“Mr Bennett!” was Mrs Bennett's delighted and high-pitched cry in response, only slightly ahead of the cries of her daughters also. One and all of them were sucked into paroxysms of delight, anxiety and hysteria. For Mr Bennett had chosen not to disclose this information to them during Elias' absence. Instead he had waited all through the days until his return, when he should have a companion worth talking to, once again.

And from then on until the ball, there was no other discussion in the house beyond the ball, and what would be _worn_ at the ball, and who would dance with _whom_ at the ball, and what party Mr Bingley would bring to the ball, and which of Elias's sisters he might dance with at the ball. But Elias bore up under these trials bravely. He spent as much of the time as possible out in the farms and fields, fishing and hunting, lounging in haystacks and reading, helping out Tom and other of his father's tenants. Generally he was doing anything he might do to avoid being consulted upon gowns, and hairstyles, and such feminine matters. He loved his sisters, but he knew where to draw the line. Being required to _tong curls_ and _stitch hems_ was a long way beyond it. All of them were half addle-pated and half-witted in the run-up –- well, all barring Jane. And even Jane seemed only three-quarter witted, at times.


	13. Chapter 13

And though the days crawled, to some, the ball did eventually have its day. On that day, the Bennet girls were dressed up like pretty butterflies, the better to catch every eye. The dance was well attended by the local gentry, and sure enough Mr Bingley's party was in attendance as faithfully promised.

The two pretty sisters formed half the party, and one of them had a husband in tow also. The remaining member, a solemnly dark and severe-looking young man, completed the set. This fellow drew many eyes, and caused many whispers amongst the young maidens of the county and their mothers. This was initially as a result of his undisputed personal attractions, being considerably handsomer than either of the other men of the party. But this little fuss and whispering was far eclipsed, when the word went about the room that Mr Darcy –- for so he was called –- was not only more handsome, but also vastly richer, than Mr Bingley –- and equally eligible, being twenty-six years old, a single man and not affianced.

The charm of his beauty and his funds, however, did not outlast a closer acquaintance with his person. By the span of an hour into the evening, little murmurs were going about of this person being snubbed by him, another being dissatisfied with his store of conversation, and still another being infuriated at his overheard offhand description of their tailoring. Another half-hour, and the fervour for his company, and the competition for his hand in the dance, had cooled off considerably. Mr Bingley, however, only shone the brighter in comparison.


End file.
